


Things I Don't Know

by FifteenDozenTimes



Category: Bandom, Disney RPF, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Crossdressing, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-23
Updated: 2011-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicole knows she doesn't want to get married yet; Spencer knows he doesn't have a thing for wearing women's clothing. And yet here they are, engagement rings on their fingers while Spencer tries on wedding dresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things I Don't Know

**Author's Note:**

> I was babbling about how Spencer and Nicole both have things for trolling, and verbosewordsmith suggested I write about how they would use announcing their engagement to troll, and then after a conversation about queer people in het relationships, fictionalaspect suggested I write about Spencer in a wedding dress, and here we are.
> 
> Title is from The Brobecks' "Better Than Me", suggested by merelyn25, and thank you verbosewordsmith for being an excellent beta <3

Nicole isn’t hugely surprised when the Talk Spencer had mentioned before he left for practice turned out to be a Where Are We Going And What The Fuck Are We Doing? Talk; her parents have started calling him their son-in-law, even if they follow it up with, “well, practically, anyway,” and his parents keep hinting about grandkids. Plus, Brendon and Sarah keep trying really hard not to be that married couple who thinks all their friends should get married, but they aren’t very good at it.

“I just need to know if it’s something you want,” Spencer says, and Nicole rolls over on her side to look at him.

“I don’t think I would’ve moved in with you if it’s not where I thought we’d end up,” she says. “And I—yeah, I do, but I don’t know if I want it _soon_.”

Spencer bites his lip and looks away, and why do they even need to talk about stuff, why can’t they just stumble around aimlessly until they get accidentally Vegas married and then accidentally pregnant somewhere down the line. Talking means, like, finding out where they don’t fit right with each other, and ruining their last night before Spencer leaves on tour with feelings instead of awesome sex.

“You want it soon, don’t you?”

“Not _soon_ -soon,” Spencer says, but he’s looking over the top of her head instead of making eye contact so she’s not sure how honest he’s being. “But not, like, in the distant future, either. Which is probably what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want, I haven’t thought about it, like, at all. I don’t know.”

“Don’t get mad.”

“I’m not mad, I’m—I don’t know. I put my prettiest underwear on and now we’re having a conversation, how did that happen?”

Spencer laughs and pushes her onto her back. “I like how subtle you are,” he says.

“We’ll talk about it when you get home?”

“Sure,” Spencer says, and starts kissing his way down her stomach, pausing at her bellybutton to look up at her. “If you’re wearing the right underwear.”

*

For the first few days of a tour, Nicole always feels a little guilty, because she misses stuff like getting laid regularly and having decent food cooked for her and cuddling on-demand more than she misses Spencer. Missing all that stuff basically _is_ missing Spencer, but, whatever, she’s weird right now about her ability to commit, or whatever, so it’s more noticeable.

She goes home for a few days, because it’s easier to visit her family without Spencer and all the requisite babies-and-marriage awkwardness (his parents do the same thing, but they’re subtler about it, no conversations start with “so when are you going to make an honest woman of my daughter?” and Spencer choking on his drink), and of course her mom just happens to have a stack of wedding magazines on hand.

“That’s awfully convenient,” Nicole says, but there are worse ways to spend an afternoon than looking at pretty dresses and tuning out the more pointed comments. And there’s this one spread—Nicole’s supposed to be thinking about this anyway, so it’s okay that she keeps stopping on the one page with the beach wedding and the bearded guy whose bow tie is the same color as Spencer’s eyes. Whatever, it’s pretty.

“I’m taking this one, Mom,” she says, and braces herself for the reaction; her mom doesn’t say anything, though, just arches her eyebrows, smiles, and takes a sip of her coffee while looking as smug as it’s humanly possible to look.

*

Spencer always hits this point two or three weeks into a tour, where he hasn’t adjusted yet, or something, and is so wiped when he finally has free time he basically puts his laptop on his stomach and naps while Nicole tries to find the right balance of actually getting to talk to him and not interrupting his sleep. At least he’s really adorable, but it makes—that’s always when Nicole shifts from missing what she gets out of Spencer being around to missing _Spencer_ , and if it wasn’t audition season and she didn’t have the dogs to think about she’d just blow everything off and go visit him.

Nicole is mercifully out of the audition for this boring high school drama that looks like it might be the right kind of shitty to get super popular when her phone rings; she’d forgotten to turn it off, and Chelsea calling a minute earlier would’ve really fucked her over.

“Do you have anything this afternoon? I hate the universe after this morning and I need a coffee date to cheer me up.”

“I just finished for the day, want me to meet you somewhere?”

Chelsea’s gotten too hipster for Starbucks, so they end up at this tiny place that doesn’t even have any chairs inside. It’ll be closed in a month and Nicole will get treated to another one of Chelsea’s awesome rants about mainstream consumer culture. If Nicole times it right she can get the lecture started halfway through a shopping date when Chelsea’s arms are full of bags.

Tiny coffee place Nicole isn’t going to bother to learn the name of is across the street from a wedding dress boutique that has the cutest dress Nicole’s ever seen in the window. It’s not just adorable, but it’d look super good with the tux from the beachy wedding spread in the magazine she stole from her mom. And it’s knee-length, Spencer’d love it, he totally has a thing for her calves.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Uh. No?”

Chelsea rolls her eyes. “You’re ogling wedding dresses, and there’s a wedding magazine in your purse.”

“Why were you in my purse?”

“You always have candy,” Chelsea says with a shrug. “So when did he ask? Why didn’t you tell me? If I’m not your maid of honor I’ll punch you in the face. And if I don’t get to pick my own dress, I’ll punch you in the face.”

“Wow,” Nicole says. “No one asked anyone, I didn’t tell you because it’s not happening, and you should suck up to me to get that privilege. We’re just talking about it.”

“Ugh,” Chelsea says, “way to take the romance out of it, champ.”

“Champ? Why are we even friends.”

“Whatever. Which one’s the dress you like? The one in the middle? You’d look _so_ good.”

“We’re not talking about this,” Nicole says. “We’re going to talk about how apparently at 24 years old I look too young to play high school kids.”

The injustice of the industry is always safe; Chelsea rants so long she forgets to bring up Nicole’s potential wedding again, and so intensely she doesn’t appear to notice Nicole writing the name of the dress place on her napkin and shoving it in her purse next to the magazine.

*

 _lololol. i can do that. lololololol_

Ian is both the best and the worst friend in the entire world.

 _if u tell brendon he’ll tell spencer_

 _i know what secret means lol I’ll be good_

It’s too late to reconsider asking him, so Nicole just pours herself another glass of wine and settles down with her laptop. She doesn’t intend to go back to looking at wedding bouquets, but she’d left the tab open and it’s hard to click away. Whatever, she likes pretty things, and she -

She just asked Ian to try and measure Spencer’s ring finger while he’s sleeping so she can propose to him with a ring, it’s probably time to stop pretending she hasn’t been planning her wedding for weeks. She—whatever, she loves Spencer like crazy and she’d probably started assuming she’d be with him forever a lot longer ago than she realized. And weddings are awesome.

Nicole dozes off at some point; wine makes her sleepy, and she’s on the weird schedule she gets on when she’s in auditions all morning, free all afternoon, and planning her nights around Skype dates with Spencer from whatever stupid time zone he happens to be in whenever he happens to have time and decent internet. She wakes up to her phone buzzing near her ear.

 _58ish mm internet says size 8 & a half_

 _ur the BEST <3!_

Nicole drains the glass she’d left half-full when she dozed off, and steels herself for the amount of teasing she’ll get after she texts Chelsea.

 _we’re going ring shopping tmrw no arguing_

*

Seven hours of shopping, six stores, eight hundred repetitions of “I knew it!” from Chelsea later, Nicole sees it. Well, she saw it a few times, but something about the way the light’s hitting it this time, or how tired she is of looking, or something is different, she _notices_ it this time.

“Chels,” she says, and points; Chelsea’s eyes get big, and she nods, and that’s enough; Nicole motions the salesman over.

“I thought you were shopping for your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” Nicole says.

“Are you aware this is a women’s—“

“I’m aware,” Nicole says, and she isn’t very good at that icy superior thing both Chelsea and Spencer can do to shut people down, but the salesman doesn’t argue again.

“I totally thought I’d be getting married before you,” Chelsea says, when they’ve settled on a hole-in-the-wall burger place for dinner and the ring box is nestled in Nicole’s pocket.

“You date weirdos, though.”

“You just bought your boyfriend a lady ring,” Chelsea points out.

“And?”

“That’s—nothing. It’s actually really cool,” she says. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

*

Spencer looks exhausted when she picks him up at the airport, so tired she actually feels too sorry for him to make fun of him for getting too old for this. He smiles big and bright when he sees her, though, and hugs her off the ground when she finally makes it through the crowd to him.

“I missed you,” Spencer says, and doesn’t set her down until Zack, Brendon, and Dallon have all told them to get a room. Ian isn’t making fun, Ian’s grinning like he knows something because he’s the least subtle person on Earth. Nicole makes a mental note to get closer to Dallon so next time she needs to send someone on a secret mission she can use someone who keeps a secret.

She hugs all the guys—or tries to, Spencer won’t take his arm away from around her waist—makes sure Breezy and Sarah are on their way and she’s not supposed to be chauffeuring anyone home, and then Spencer has his bag and he’s basically dragging her to the car.

“Homesick?”

“And exhausted, and I kind of want to get home before I fall asleep so I can enjoy cuddling you. And the dogs. But mostly you.”

“Don’t lie, mostly the dogs,” she says, and when she glances over at the passenger seat his face is this weird mix of half-asleep and suspicious.

“So I invited Ian to stay with us until he flies back home, since we have plenty of room and he likes the dogs and you guys are friends. And he decided to stay on Brendon and Sarah’s couch instead of in our nice big guest room.”

“Huh.”

“And he’s spent the last month grinning like an idiot whenever he looks at me.”

“Ian’s a weird kid.”

“He’s older than you. And what did you do?”

“Nothing!” Spencer raises his eyebrows. The ring is in her purse at his feet. “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”

“I don’t believe you,” he says, “but I’m going to nap instead of pushing.”

“Good plan.”

Spencer stays awake long enough to give Boba the biggest hug in the world, and Fendi the second-biggest (he isn’t supposed to be playing favorites with their kids, asshole), and then collapses in their bed without even taking his shoes off. Nicole tugs them and his socks off for him, and then wrestles him out of his jeans and jacket because she’s awesome. And then, even though she’s not tired, she strips down and snuggles up next to him.

It’s dark when she opens her eyes again, apparently she was at least a little tired. She’s sweaty and gross from Spencer’s body heat and the dogs’, but she just nuzzles her face into the curve of Spencer’s shoulder and tries to go back to sleep.

Spencer laughs, hoarse from sleep, when her stomach growls. “Want me to make something?”

“Are you rested enough, or will you set the kitchen on fire? We can order out, there’s got to be something open twenty-four hours around here.”

He laughs again and kisses her forehead before wriggling out of bed. The dogs follow him, and there’s no reason for her to stay after that, even though it’s three in the morning and a normal person would just go back to sleep. Spencer was nice enough to take his shirt off and leave it on the floor before he made it out of the bedroom, which is awesome, because none of the shirts he left here smell like him. This one smells a little too much like him, but whatever.

“I can’t give you all the bacon,” Spencer’s saying to Fendi when she makes it down to the kitchen, “no matter how cute you are.”

He keeps wincing, because what kind of idiot cooks bacon without a shirt on, and Nicole was going to wait until he had a nice long break so they could celebrate properly, not just a couple days, but holy _fuck_ she loves him.

Nicole’s purse is on the table, and she manages to wait until he’s got a plate of bacon and eggs for each of them (and some bacon cooling on the counter for the dogs) but not until they cool enough to start eating. Spencer’s watching her with his same sleepy-suspicious look from the car while she fishes it out, but he looks like he gets it when she gets down on her knee.

“So, um, I wasn’t lying when I said I hadn’t thought about it, because I wouldn’t lie just so I could surprise you, just, I’ve been thinking about it. And, uh, I—will you have lots of talks with me about what we both want out of this no matter how sexy my lingerie is, and then when we’ve done that, will you marry me?”

“Holy shit,” Spencer says. “You—holy shit.”

She thinks, for a second, he’s going to come out of his chair and tackle her to the floor, but he just grabs her and hauls her into his lap, kisses her until their eggs are too cold and gross to eat.

*

Spencer being home is even worse for her schedule than Spencer being gone; she goes back to sleep at eight in the morning, after waffles and some really vigorous celebratory sex. When she wakes up again, the clock on the nightstand says 12:17, but the blackout shades are pulled and she has no idea if that’s late-night or early-afternoon.

There’s sunlight streaming in through the windows in the living room, so that answers that. Spencer’s stretched out on the couch with Fendi at his feet, taking pictures of his hand.

“You can’t wait until tonight to show off to your boys?” She considers climbing onto the couch with him, but he’s got some pretty epic sprawl happening and even she isn’t tiny enough to find space. Boba’s looking at her while he chews hopefully on his rope, anyway, so she sits down on the floor and indulges him in tug-of-war.

“Tomorrow night. I told you we had a day off.”

“I don’t even know what day it is.”

“And this isn’t for them, it’s for Twitter.”

“I thought—ow, Boba, you fucking beast—I thought you weren’t going to say anything?”

Spencer tosses his phone at her, which is a risky prospect considering she’s distracted by the giant dog trying to rip her arm out of its socket and has trouble catching things at the best of times. It hits her in the chest and drops into her lap instead of hitting the floor and breaking, at least.

 _@brendonboydurie thanks for the sweet ring bro!!!_

“Oh my God,” she says, and lets Boba yank the rope out of her hand. He hates playing tug-of-war with her, she’s pretty sure. “You’re such an ass.”

“An awesome ass. Anyway, now I can wear it without people being weird or assuming shit or bothering you.”

“I don’t mind being bothered. Much. And, like, I was thinking, when we visit your parents next, we should take pictures at some chapels. Maybe with some Elvis impersonators.”

“So we can make Twitter think we’re already married?”

“And then it’ll be less of a blow when they find out you’re just engaged! Also, it’ll be hilarious.”

“Shit,” Spencer says, slides off the couch and crawls across the floor to kiss her. “I fucking love you.”

*

The show is amazing, as usual; Spencer’s all smiles between his usual drum faces, and Nicole likes to think she can see the ring glinting on his finger sometimes. She can’t, probably, but it’s a nice thought, nice like the way Sarah and Breezy keep beaming at her, nice enough to keep her from feeling shitty about Spencer leaving again until she’s actually bringing him to the airport.

“I hate these little teases,” she complains, and Spencer throws his arm around her, holds her tight to his side even though it makes walking hard.

“Next time I’ll stay with Dallon and Breezy, then, if you don’t want me.”

“I know you want me to say, ‘I always want you, Spencer,’ but I’m not going to.”

“You just did! Ha.”

“Dork,” Nicole says, and goes up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Don’t make fun of me when I’m trying to be mushy.”

“Don’t be mushy when I’m trying to make fun of you,” he counters, and kisses her again. “Mm. Just a month this time. And when I get back we get to plan the most awesome wedding in the history of weddings.”

He pulls back enough to high five her, because he’s a complete loser, and maybe it’s time for Nicole to just quit life and tour with him, because this sucks.

*

Sarah invites Nicole out to lunch when the boys have been gone for two weeks, which isn’t weird, but it’s unexpected—they’re not _not_ friends, they just don’t really hang out without the guys. Nicole gets it, though, when she shows up at Sarah’s and there’s a stack of wedding planning stuff on the coffee table almost as tall as Nicole.

“Subtle,” she says. Sarah just grins.

“I knew I hadn’t thrown this stuff away. Some of it’s Breezy’s, and it’s all pretty old, but it might do you guys some good.”

“Wow.”

“Sit.”

“I was promised food.”

“Oh my God,” Sarah says, “you two are fucking perfect for each other. I ordered food. Sit.”

Nicole considers pointing out they haven’t even started planning anything, they don’t even know when they want to do this, but she vaguely remembers Spencer’s stories back when they started dating about how wedding-planning-crazy Brendon’s fiancée (who at that point Nicole hadn’t even met) had gotten, and for free lunch Nicole can totally indulge her.

Things deteriorate when Sarah decides they need to drink while they do this, and then again when she decides Breezy needs to be involved, because Breezy brings more alcohol, more wedding magazines, and some posterboard, markers, and glue left over from one of her kids’ school projects.

“We’ve been at this for, like, seven hours,” Nicole says, lying on the floor with her feet up on the couch and Penny licking her face.

“I’ve only been here for three,” Breezy says; when Nicole twists to look at her she’s drawing a stick figure in around one of the dresses she’d glued onto a poster. Sarah’s coloring in a suit she’d drawn for stick figure Spencer. Nicole really, really needs to spend more time with them.

“Has Zack given you the talk yet?” Sarah asks.

“Zack’s given me many talks. They usually start with, ‘stop encouraging Spencer,’ though, so probably not what you mean.”

Sarah snorts and laughs. “The ‘stay the fuck away from the internet and don’t let the bastards get you down’ talk. There’s a special ‘so now you’re engaged’ version he wrote after Brendon proposed, I think he has visual aids.”

“Zack is weird.”

“Extremely. But he’s smart about this stuff, and I don’t want you to—I know you two have fun with this shit, but any crap you get now is about to get a hundred times worse, so even if it doesn’t bother you at all now, you should, y’know, be prepared.”

Nicole remembers that, too, from the first few months with Spencer, all the complaints about the shitty way they treated Sarah, how he told her not to mention him on Twitter, ever, until they knew how serious they were going to get and how worth dealing with that crap their relationship would be. The thing about deliberately provoking it, though, is it’s easy to pretend the bad stuff is only there because they’re pushing it.

“I’ll brace myself,” Nicole says, and Sarah gives her a long, considering look before turning back to picking out the right marker to color Spencer’s tie.

*

 _what happens in vegas stays in vegas, right @TheSpencerSmith?_

Nicole would swear the tweet, complete with a picture of the two of them cozying up outside a neon-lit chapel, was still sending when Spencer’s phone went off.

“Zack would like us to know if we tweet any more chapel pictures, he’s going to murder one of us.”

“Pfft,” Nicole says, and stirs Fendi’s food. “Tell him if I’m going to get death threats, I’m going to have fun with it.”

“Then he’ll accuse me of trying to make him feel sorry for you so he won’t dole out justice. Boba’s bowl looks emptier than Fendi’s, are you playing favorites?”

“Yes. I’m trying to starve our dog. You caught me.”

Spencer’s eye roll is audible as he comes up behind her and rests his chin on top of her head. “Give Boba another scoop.”

“I _measured_ it, oh my God.”

“Well, Boba’s bigger.”

It’s Nicole’s turn to roll her eyes, but she adds another scoop of dry food and re-stirs. Whatever, when Boba overeats he gets cranky and refuses to cuddle, and then they can give Fendi all the attention. Spencer’s phone buzzes, and he pokes her in the ribs trying to get it out without moving away from her.

“Zack doesn’t care about your pain, and also thinks after twelve rounds of weekly ‘we got Vegas married, wait, no we didn’t’ tweets, we must be getting bored.”

“He’s not wrong,” Nicole says. “Anyway, we’re out of pictures. You can tell him that, but don’t say we’ll stop.”

“Yes ma’am,” Spencer says, taps for a few seconds and pokes her in the ribs again putting his phone away before wrapping an arm around her and pulling her tight against him. “Now, do you want to order in, and fuck while we wait for the delivery, or want me to cook and we can talk about flowers?”

“Will you be offended if I pick flowers?”

“Fuck no,” Spencer says, and lets her go so she can put the dogs’ food down for them. “I was hoping you’d pick that, I was looking at bouquets all morning.”

 

*

When Nicole comes out of the dressing room, Spencer is once again fondling the pretty off-the-shoulder dress with the poofy skirt that made Nicole look three feet shorter than she actually is.

“Do I need to try it on again to remind you how crappy it looked?”

“Huh? No, I was just—like, this is so much more fun than suit shopping.”

“You love suits.”

“Yeah, but they’re still boring. Dress shopping is, like, I don’t know. There’s more variety, and shit.”

“Which means it takes ten times as long to try stuff on and find something that doesn’t look like garbage. Speaking of, what do you think? Since you’re supposed to be here to help, and all.”

“Sorry,” he says, and turns away from the dress. “Um, it’s kind of prom-y? Like, you look good, but you also look fifteen.”

“Ew.”

“Good _in spite of_ looking fifteen, Jesus.” Spencer turns away and goes back to poking at the rack of rejected dresses.

“Seriously, if you want to trade, I’ll go get measured once and then just have to pick out fabric, and you can put on eight hundred stupid dresses.”

“I probably wouldn’t whine as much as you are.”

“Oh my God,” Nicole says, and stomps out of the fitting area. Spencer doesn’t follow her, even when it takes her longer than she thought to find the poofy-skirted dress in what looks like the right size, and when she takes it back in he’s just sitting in one of the chairs, watching the door with his eyebrow raised. “Here,” she says, shoves the dress at him. “Try it on.”

“I—no.”

“Pussy.”

Spencer arches the other eyebrow and gets up. “Is there anyone else here?”

“It’s a Wednesday afternoon, no. Just the saleslady and she’s barely paying attention.”

“If I do it, I get to make fun of your whining all I want.”

“Sure,” Nicole says, and Spencer glances around like he doesn’t believe the store is empty, and then goes into her abandoned dressing room.

“If you take any pictures, I’ll kill you, you do know that?” he calls from inside.

“You have my purse in there with you, my camera’s in it.” Her phone’s tucked in her bra, but whatever, he can’t possibly really expect her to not capture the moment.

“Fine,” he says, and goes silent again for a while. Nicole’s about to ask if he needs any help when she hears him say, just barely audible over the crappy easy listening on the store speakers, “ _oh_.”

“What?”

“You’re sure no one’s out there?”

“I promise,” she says. “Come on, show me.”

She aims her phone at the door, and snaps a picture as soon as he steps out.

“Goddammit,” he says, blinking rapidly against the brightness of the flash. “I fucking hate you.”

Nicole doesn’t really hear him, because—because _oh_. Spencer’s stupidly good looking, she’s always known that, but his _shoulders_ are broad and pale and freckled and bare, and the way the neckline accentuates his collarbones, and the skirt doesn’t make him look freakishly short, and he is just—just—her boyfriend—fiancé—looks fucking _pretty_ in a dress, wow.

“Uh,” he says. His cheeks are a little pink, and he’s shifting awkwardly under her stare.

“Sorry, just—this is less funny than I expected.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I, uh, yeah.”

She walks over to him, close enough she can run her thumbs over his collarbones, and she shouldn’t make out with him right now, not when the saleslady might come in, not when he’s wearing a fucking dress (and maybe she shouldn’t _want_ to make out with him when he’s wearing a dress, what the fuck does this even mean?), but she wants to.

“I’m gonna—I should change back,” he says, and Nicole nods but doesn’t take her hands off him right away, and he doesn’t step back into the dressing room until she finally does.

*

“So is it, like, a thing for you?”

Spencer slams _The Knot_ shut—at least as much as it’s possible to slam a magazine shut—and sighs. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I just—if that’s something you’re into, that’s fine. Do you want to, like, wear a dress when I use a strap-on, is it a pretend-to-be-a-girl thing?”

“It’s not something I’m into, and it’s not a thing, and it has nothing to do with being a girl. I just thought it kind of looked nice, Jesus.”

“Don’t get defensive,” Nicole says, sets her book down and rolls over to snuggle against his side. “I’m not judging, I just want to know.”

“There’s nothing to know, it isn’t—that wasn’t anything. I haven’t, like, thought about it, or anything, I just liked how it looked.”

“I did, too.” Nicole presses a kiss to his shoulder, and he sighs again and wraps his arm around her.

“I noticed.”

“Okay, so if you know I like it, too—“

“I don’t want to talk about this, Nicole, fuck. It was a stupid joke, it’s over, drop it.”

Spencer doesn’t ever get like this about stuff that isn’t somehow important, and she kind of wants to push—she’s always liked how good they are at talking about their weird shit. Spencer liking dresses isn’t even that weird. But she doesn’t want to fight, or make him feel cornered, so she just nods and reaches for the magazine.

“Did you see the tacky diamond ring keychains? How many of your friends do you think would wear them as, like, necklaces if we gave them out?”

“You’ve met my friends,” Spencer says, “you know all of them would.”

*  

Chelsea flips rapidly through the rack of dresses, occasionally pulling one out and throwing it at Nicole.

“I’m feeling really left out of wedding planning, by the way,” she says, pausing on some hideous floral thing like she’s actually considering it. Thankfully she moves on.

“Spencer and I are handling it fine, sorry. You can put all your energy into planning the best bachelorette party ever?”

“Oh, I am, don’t worry. I think I’ll hire Spencer’s friend Brendon as the stripper.”

“No,” Nicole says, “if you’re getting strippers they need to be people I haven’t seen naked.”

Chelsea tosses a cute orange dress with ruffles onto the pile Nicole’s starting to have trouble holding. “Your life is weird.”

“Brendon’s weird. My life is fine.”

“Whatever. And bachelorette party or no, it’s still bullshit I didn’t get to go wedding dress shopping with you.”

Nicole doesn’t want to talk about wedding dress shopping, because she and Spencer are tiptoeing around each other right now and it’s weird and uncomfortable to have something they both know they’re not talking about. It’s stupid, there’s no reason for Spencer to be weird about this when he’s fine talking about every other little thing, and going over their history with a fine-tooth comb to try and figure out where she might have done something to convince him this is over her line is exhausting.

“Sorry. I still don’t have one, though, so you can be in on the next trip.”

Chelsea hums and pushes Nicole towards the dressing room.

“You know we’re not leaving until you have something for the reception and something for the rehearsal dinner, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nicole says, and then, before she can think better of it, “can you go find something in a large? Um, for someone kind of tall, long legs, not too much boobage? Spencer’s sisters have a birthday coming up.”

Chelsea frowns, and for a second Nicole’s afraid she’s remembering that she’s met Spencer’s sisters, and neither one of them looks like who Nicole just described. But it’s her deep-shopping-related-thoughts face, apparently, because Nicole doesn’t have to worry long before Chelsea’s face lights up and she shouts, “yes!” Chelsea’s some kind of shopping goddess; if there’s a dress here for Spencer, she’ll find it.

*

“I brought you a present,” she calls when she gets home. She’d toyed with the idea of finding some cuter way to give it to him, but Chelsea wasn’t kidding about making Nicole shop until they succeeded and she’s dead on her feet. Spencer can come find her collapsed on the couch if he wants his gift.

He does, because he’s a sucker for presents. “Good,” he says, “you owe me, your dog was a little shit on his walk.”

“It’s because he knows you don’t love him as much as Boba,” she says, because Fendi is a wise little man and absolutely right to punish Spencer for playing favorites. She tosses the dress at him and waits for—she’s not sure, gratitude or something about how glad he is she knows him better than he knows himself or some gushing about how pretty it is (it _is_ pretty, a nice gray that makes his eyes pop, a sweetheart neckline that she thinks will do great things for his collarbones, a fitted waist that’ll accentuate his hips really well) or, well, anything but what he does.

“I don’t know what the fuck your problem is,” he says, and throws it back at her. “If this is some kink for you, fine, whatever, but say _that_ , don’t try to make me admit I’m into it so you don’t have to say it.”

“That’s not—“

“I don’t know why you’re being so pushy about it, then.”

“I’m not being pushy! I was trying to be nice.”

“Well, you failed.”

“Obviously,” Nicole says, and stuffs the dress back into the bag instead of yelling. Or crying. Or whatever. She’s wrinkling it  and her own dresses, but fuck it, she doesn't want to fight and—what, if she gets it out of sight Spencer will magically not be pissed off anymore?

"I don't—fuck," Spencer says, and scrubs his hands through his hair. "I don't want to fight with you."

"So don't get mad about something stupid," Nicole says.

"It's not stupid, I fucking told you to drop it and you ignored me, that isn't stupid. I—shit. I'm going to hang out with Brendon."

"Sure. Fine. Awesome. Have fun."

Nicole can't seem to make words stop coming out of her mouth, but Spencer doesn't say anything else, just grabs his keys and leaves. Which is fucking awesome, perfect, in the space of like a week they went from talking about everything to—fuck it. Nicole grabs a bottle of wine and the quilt she's been working on and tries really hard not to yell at Fendi when he won't come upstairs to cuddle with her. Boba's on the bed, at least, and he curls up on her feet as soon as she gets settled.

She wakes up to cold feet, her face half on the in-progress quilt—hoop pressing into her cheekbone, ow—and half on the pillow, and Spencer shaking her gently.

"I'm a touring musician who's seen all sorts of new and exciting ways to have jet lag, and you still have the worst sleep schedule of anyone I've ever met."

"Good for me," she says, and Spencer sighs.

"I didn't—I'm sorry, I was being an ass, I just—I'm an ass."

"Yeah," Nicole says, and sits up. "It's okay, I was being pushy."

"No. I mean, yeah, a little, but not—I shouldn't have freaked out. It's weird, though, isn't it? It's really weird that I liked that. Like, maybe not if it was a sex thing, but it's not."

Nicole pushes him a little so he sits back and she can straddle his hips. "I wear guy clothes all the time," she says. "It's nothing."

"You wearing my shirts because they're lying around is different from me wanting to buy dresses specifically for me to wear, I think."

"It doesn't have to be."

Spencer sighs and rests his forehead on her shoulders so she can barely hear his next words. "I thought maybe it was too weird for you, and you just wanted me to admit it so you could dump me before the wedding."

"You—seriously?" She tries to get off his lap, because what the fuck, but he wraps his arms around her and doesn't let her move.

"As soon as I said it out loud, I felt like a moron," he says, and looks up at her. "I don't really think it when I'm being rational."

"So you told Brendon."

"I tell Brendon everything. He laughed at me."

"Brendon's a dick sometimes."

"No—well, yeah, he is, but no, I needed it."

Nicole leans down and kisses him softly. "I don't have a problem with it," she says, "I promise. It was like—those jeans you have, the ones you won't wear around the house anymore because I can't keep my hands off you? It was like when you wear those. Like, you just looked really hot. You have, I don't know, a good build for it, your waist was _made_ for skirts. And you like clothes, so of course you'd be into clothes you look good in, right?"

"Stop being logical," he says, and kisses her. "It makes me feel worse about being a dick. And, um, could I—the dress, I want to—if you're sure it's not too weird."

"Spence, baby, I bought you a lady engagement ring, if I was going to have a problem with it I probably wouldn't have done that."

"Right," he says, "okay," and shifts her off his lap. The bag from the thrift store is on the dresser, and he takes it into the bathroom instead of letting her watch him change.

It's not perfect; she was wrong about the neckline, his collarbones and shoulders are still lovely but the shape just makes it obvious how flat his chest is. The skirt, though, tight at the waist, flared out just enough—shit, Spencer's so _pretty_ , not just like this but always.

"It's not—"

"We'll find you better ones," she says, "come here."

Spencer buries his face in her chest, tangles his legs with hers, and lets out a long breath. If Nicole could marry him right this second, she would; as it is, she settles for combing her fingers through his hair and telling him she loves him until he complains that "love" doesn't even sound like a word anymore.

They spend half an hour in the morning ordering dresses from a site that lets them type Spencer’s measurements in so the dress will fit his flat chest, and he wears the gray dress until they leave to go pick out a wedding cake.

*

“Brendon wants to know if we can combine bachelor and bachelorette parties,” Spencer says. “He thinks we should find a decent stretch of beach and do a low-key surfing thing and a bonfire. I said I didn’t know if any of your friends surf, though.”

“Joe does. Kenny knows how, but I think he just learned to pick up guys. Um, Nick might? It doesn’t matter, though, I can’t think of anyone who’d turn down a beach party. Chelsea might not like it, but I can ask.”

“Don’t, if it’ll bother her. I just figure our friends mostly know each other, I know Ian and the Cab guys told Brendon they didn’t know whose they wanted to go to yet, so it’d be easier.”

“I don’t think she’ll mind as long as Brendon doesn’t mind her being a control freak about food and decorations and party games and shit.”

“I’ll tell him Chelsea’s like Sarah about parties, he’ll get it.”

“Awesome,” Nicole says, and tugs Boba’s leash to get him to stop smelling the stupid flower he’s been fixating on. He tugs back, hard enough she falls over. “Asshole dog. Trade leashes with me.”

“I don’t know,” Spencer says, “wasn’t this your idea? They need to know we both love them equally, right?”

“You have no idea how much I hate you.”

Spencer laughs and helps her up, then hands her Fendi’s leash and takes Boba’s. “Maybe It’s the dogs who play favorites, not us.”

“Your mom plays favorites,” Nicole says, and takes Spencer’s hand so she can hold it for the rest of the walk.

*

Nicole loves Chelsea more than anyone in the world, because Nicole had a shitty phone call from her stupid agent that put her (and Spencer, when she made him cuddle her as soon as she realized where the call was going) like an hour behind for the one day out of the past six months they’re on any kind of schedule. So she forgot to warn Chelsea about Spencer’s crossdressing, or to warn Spencer that Chelsea doesn’t know, doesn’t think of it at all until the doorbell rings and Spencer answers it in his pretty dress, probably expecting Brendon.

“Wow,” Chelsea says, and Nicole cringes, but she follows it with, “hot,” instead of something surprised and accidentally mean. Chelsea is the best.

“I have the prettiest boyfriend,” Nicole says, when Chelsea finishes helping herself to the fridge and sprawls on the couch with Nicole.

“Fiancé,” she says, “and yes. And if you’d told me that dress was for him, I totally could’ve done better.”

“Yeah, well.”

Brendon’s late, but he also brings like a hundred pounds of weed, so Nicole doesn’t bother to complain. Probably getting stupidly high before they put together the seating arrangement isn’t the best idea, but their only real rule is Jon apparently shouldn’t sit with Dallon, and Dallon’s a groomsman so that’s easy enough.

“Can we put a booster seat in Ian’s chair?” Nicole asks.

“Really? You’re making jokes about someone’s height?”

“I agree with Chelsea that you don’t get to call him short, and with you that it would be hilarious and we should do it.”

Brendon makes a note on the seating chart, because Brendon is a good dude who appreciates a joke at someone else’s expense. The chart only takes twenty minutes, and then instead of starting any of the other hundred things they could be doing, they smoke more.

“Did your mom finish altering your dress?” Chelsea asks Nicole.

“It’s so pretty,” Spencer croons, before she can answer. “So, so pretty.”

“You’re not supposed to see it before the wedding, dude.”

“Bullshit,” Spencer says. “I helped pick it out. It’s so pretty.”

“Hm,” Chelsea says. “Will we be treated to your fabulous legs, or are you going a little more traditional?”

“Oh God. No matter what we do, fans will get hold of the pictures, no fucking _way_ am I wearing a dress.”

Nicole manages to tear herself away from rubbing her face on Fendi—her dog is the softest thing in the universe—to look over at Spencer. “But otherwise you would?”

“Uh. Maybe? I didn’t really think about it.”

“‘Cause I’d be okay with it, you know that, right? I think everyone would.”

“I don’t think _everyone_ would,” Spencer says. “But I know you are. And you know it’d be a horrible idea.”

“What about the beach party?” Chelsea asks. “It’s pretty casual, you can pretend it’s a joke if you think people would be weird.”

“Shit,” Spencer says, “we have to behave even better at the party, there are at least ten people coming with raging Twitter addictions.”

“That sucks,” Chelsea says. “You should be, y’know, free, and shit.”

“As free as his balls in that skirt,” Brendon agrees, and the two of them start laughing so loudly Fendi startles and sulks out of the room. Nicole sits up and looks over at Spencer; he isn’t laughing, and she can’t tell if he’s actually upset or just didn’t like their stupid joke. Either way, she crawls across the floor and tucks herself against his side.

He doesn’t say anything about it until later, long after they’ve put together favor boxes until their fingers got tired and Brendon and Chelsea sobered up enough to drive home, while Nicole’s unzipping his dress.

“It’s not really that big a thing for me,” he says. “Like, I like jeans, too, but I can’t wear jeans to our wedding.”

“No, but, I mean, you got all starry-eyed over that wedding dress, and then about mine, so it’s not a really weird assumption that you want to wear one.”

“Maybe,” Spencer says, and slides the dress off his shoulders, which, this is totally not a kinky thing for Nicole, but something about him taking his dress off is way hotter than him taking off any other article of clothing.

“What about the rehearsal dinner? Hardly anyone will be there, definitely not anyone we’d have to worry about.”

“Our parents,” Spencer says. “Fuck, _your_ parents.”

“My parents won’t care. I can call and make sure, though.”

“Oh God,” Spencer says, “no. Or, maybe, but no, I don’t want to talk about this anymore, come sit on my dick and we’ll stop talking.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Nicole says, but honestly that’s a pretty hard—heh—offer to turn down.

*

The beach party gets a little out of hand once people stop surfing and start drinking, but there’s a reason they decided to have it a couple days before the wedding. Nicole loses track of Spencer early, since he surfs and she doesn’t, but whatever, they have a bad habit of getting kind of insular when neither of them have any reason to leave the house, and it’s a party, she’s supposed to be social.

Still, when she spots him in the middle of Pete trying to give her marriage advice and career advice and either using a s’mores metaphor or giving her s’mores advice, she doesn’t feel too horrible about excusing herself to grab a couple beers out of the cooler and join him. Pete doesn’t care, anyway, she’s not even out of earshot before he’s grabbed Demi and started trying to woo her over to Decaydance for the fifth time that day.

“You can’t be antisocial today,” she tells him when she sits next to him, far enough away from the crowd it’s just a dull roar.

“I’m not,” he says, “just taking a breather.”

Nicole nods and rests her head on his shoulder; she gives them about ten minutes before someone finds them and starts making fun of them for being too wrapped up in each other. Whatever.

“I ordered a really cute dress today,” Spencer says, while Nicole’s trying to decide whether the waves putting her to sleep means she should drink more or drink less, “for the rehearsal dinner.”

“It better not clash with mine,” she says.

“I’m just—I’m really glad I’m not too weird for you.”

“I keep telling you this isn’t that weird. Letting me walk down the aisle to the Imperial March is weird. _Suggesting_ it is weird. This is nothing.”

“It isn’t, though, and you know that.”

“Maybe. It can be, though.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, just tips his head against hers and squeezes her hand. They stay like that until Nicole hears Brendon’s voice carrying over everyone else’s, demanding to know if they snuck away to have beach sex.

*

The house is a disaster when Nicole's parents show up, but apparently it being the day before her wedding is a get-out-of-criticism-free card, because her mom doesn't even raise an eyebrow at the pile of pizza boxes her dad has to clear off the couch to sit down, just gathers them off the floor and stacks them neatly next to the kitchen trash can.

"Sorry," Nicole says, "it's been, y'know, a week."

"I've seen the house before, I know how neat you usually don't keep it," her mom says, but she sounds more amused than anything, and she goes up on her toes to kiss Nicole's forehead before she starts clearing off the kitchen table. “Although it might have been nice to keep the living room clean, if you expect us to sleep on the couch.”

“You’re not sleeping on the couch, we are.”

“No one’s going to put you out of your own bed.”

Nicole considers throwing the stack of dishes in the sink away, decides her mom will probably notice and stop being so forgiving about the mess. She’ll scrub them, then, but she won’t be happy about it. Next time she’ll pick Spencer’s parents up at the airport and he can hang out with her family and clean up both their mess.

Speaking of Spencer, “So, Mom, I kind of wanted to warn you, Spencer—“

“Does he turn into a bear when he’s stressed out? Just like your father. I’ll stay out of his way if he’s awful.”

“He’s not awful, and neither one of us are really stressed. He just—he’s going to wear a dress tonight, and I don’t want you to say anything.”

Nicole’s mother arches her eyebrow, and doesn’t say anything right away. Maybe Nicole overestimated the boundaries of her mother’s as-long-as-you’re-happy-I-don’t-care attitude. Maybe she should run upstairs and pull out a suit for Spencer to wear tonight, just in case.

“Did he lose a bet? Why are you two always making bets?”

“It’s not just us, sometimes it’s Brendon. Or Chelsea. Or Ian, or Kenny, or—we have a lot of idiot friends. No, he just—he wears dresses sometimes, and tonight is one of those times.”

"I knew he had to come with a catch."

Nicole starts to scrub her hands over her face, then remembers just in time they're covered in soap suds and gross food residue. "It's not a catch, Mom, there's nothing wrong with it."

"Hm."

"Does 'hm' mean 'I don't get it but I promise I won't say anything to upset him or you'?"

Nicole's mother sighs. "He's such a handsome man, though."

"And he's handsome in dresses, too. _Mom_."

"I won't say a word, give me some credit. I'll even prepare your father."

"Daddy won't mind."

"But you thought I would."

Nicole turns back to the dishes so she can look as annoyed as she wants without turning this into a fight. "You aren't proving me wrong."

"This isn't me minding, this is me being old and not understanding how you kids work."

"Dresses are nice, Spencer likes nice clothes, that's how it works."

"Don't get defensive," her mother says, and pats Nicole's back a couple times before she starts clearing off the counter next to her. "As long as you're happy, baby, I don't care. But it's unusual."

They have the kitchen spotless and most of the living room respectably clean when Spencer and his family spill through the door, and then of course they have to take a break for hugging and catching up, and the vague chaos that always happens when their families are in the same place. Spencer drags Nicole out of the fray and kisses the top of her head.

"I would've let you go if I'd known you'd be stuck with the mess," he says.

"That's a lie, and you know it," she says, "but it's fine. I'm gonna go shower and change, and you can provide slave labor for my parents, and then you can go get ready."

"And it's—"

"You can wear the outfit you planned on," she says, and the relief on his face is worth, like, twenty frustrating conversations with her mother.

*

"Brendon's married," Nicole tells Kenny for the fiftieth time when she passes him on her way to go tell Spencer's sisters how nice they look.

"I'm not flirting," he calls after her, which is a complete lie.

Spencer catches her around the waist before she gets to the corner the girls are being antisocial in—she's never met anyone like Spencer's family for loving people and hating people so much all at the same time—and stops her from walking any farther until she gives in and hugs him.

"I'm trying to mingle," she complains, but Spencer hugs are always the best possible use of her time so she doesn't really try to get away. He looks so good tonight, dress the same gray she'd picked out for him before, square neckline that sets off his collarbones and a pretty circle skirt that makes his waist look tiny. He shaved his legs, even, which is surprisingly hot, and under his arms (but not his beard, _never_ his beard), but more than that he just looks so _happy_ , he could be wearing a fucking sack and still be the hottest person in the room.

"I'm trying to spend some time with my girlfriend."

"You spend, like, all day every day with your girlfriend, who also happens to be your fiancée."

"Because my life is awesome," he says, and when she looks up to kiss him he looks like he's never meant something so much in his life.

*

"Last chance to back out," Nicole says, and straightens Spencer's tie mostly for an excuse to tug him in for a kiss before she puts her lipstick on and can't kiss him without Chelsea smacking her.

"Fuck no," he says against her lips. "But you can, if you want to."

"I swear to God," Chelsea says, "if you two play chicken to get yourselves to the altar, I will never let you live it down."

Spencer snorts and leans in for one more kiss, one that goes on long enough Sarah and Breezy actually grab him to drag him out of the room.

"I don't think I should be punished for getting ready faster than she did," he protests, but he lets them push him out the door.

Nicole's supposed to be nervous, right? Like, even people who are stupid-happy in love get nervous on their wedding day, because—well, she doesn't know why, but she's watched a ridiculous amount of romantic comedies with weddings in them lately, and everyone's always nervous. She's _not_ , though, she's just so excited she can't sit still and ready to get the boring part over so they can party. Party _married_ , they'll be married in, like, forty-five minutes.

She sits patiently and lets Sarah do her makeup, Chelsea her hair, listens to her mother going on about how pretty Nicole is and how happy a day this is and probably some profound life advice Nicole wouldn't put into practice until she learned it on her own anyway, and Spencer's sisters giggling about who has the cuter groomsman, and then it's places, everybody, like she's shooting a movie.

It is a movie, apparently one that she keeps skipping through; it was supposed to drag on, take forever, but one second Nicole's trying to look badass and composed instead of giggling about Ian's face when he realizes they weren't actually joking about Nicole walking in to the Imperial March, and the next there's a ring on her finger and Spencer's lifting her off the ground to kiss her, and she isn't wrapping her legs around his waist because they're in a church and her mother's right there, but she almost did it on instinct anyway.

"Hi," Spencer says, when he sets her down, and he's beaming at her, and this is obviously the best movie ever made.

Nicole doesn’t stop skipping around until partway through the reception; she’s so glad Shane offered to film it, because she was totally floating through the toasts and knowing Brendon and Chelsea they were really great. Ian actually sits in his booster seat, at least for a few minutes before he declares his ass isn’t child-sized and stashes it under the table, and people keep congratulating them, and she knows the food must be good but she barely tastes it. Spencer calls her an asshole when he cuts the cake to find the Smirnoff Ice she’d paid the baker _way_ too much to hide, and she can picture their parents’ eyes all rolling in unison while he chugs it. Maybe that shouldn’t be what makes her feel like she’s back to living in real time, but whatever.

Brendon wrote a song for them (“It’s nothing,” he’d said, “I write songs about, like, breakfast, sometimes.” Nicole didn’t believe that for a second, but she loves how much he loves Spencer), and they barely dance their first dance, just sway around a little so they can listen properly. After that (and the manly hug where both Spencer and Brendon are trying to wipe their tears on each other’s shoulders like anyone will care that they got emotional) it’s a free-for-all for the karaoke machine they’d decided would be both cheaper and more awesome than a band.

Spencer, predictably, gets sick of the crowd after four songs and drags Nicole off to a little alcove on the way to the bathrooms.

“You know I’m going to be smug about this forever, right?” he asks.

“Smug about marrying me? Yeah, you should be.”

“About how it was my idea.”

“Yeah, but I asked.”

“But you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t brought it up.”

“Are you two seriously turning this into a competition?” Chelsea asks, holding out a flute of champagne for each of them. “Weirdos.”

“And proud of it,” Nicole says, and clinks her glass with Spencer’s. “Right?”

“Totally.” Chelsea rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling fondly as she walks away.

“You are a weirdo, you know,” she says, and then bites her lip a little because they’re pretty okay but she’s been really careful about some of their usual insults, just in case.

“And now you’re stuck with me,” he says, pins her against the wall and kisses her until Zack finds them and drags them back into the crowd. They drink, and dance, and they’re _married_.

Yeah, okay, definitely the best movie.


End file.
